Can a UAE auditor be penalised for tipping off a client about a Suspicious Transaction Report?
Yes. Auditors, accountants and their staff are expressly prohibited from telling a customer, directly or indirectly, that a Suspicious Transaction Report has been filed or is about to be filed, or that the authorities are looking into the matter. The prohibition covers the firm, its directors, its officers and every employee, and it applies to the underlying data as well as to the fact of reporting itself.
The penalty is criminal, not merely administrative. Disclosure in breach of the confidentiality duty attracts imprisonment and a fine of not less than AED 50,000, or either penalty. In practice this means an audit partner cannot warn a client that a transaction has been escalated, cannot hint at it through a change in engagement terms, and cannot allow junior staff to discuss the filing outside the reporting chain. Firms should route all suspicion internally to the Compliance Officer alone and keep STR working papers segregated from the general audit file.
There is one narrow carve-out. An independent statutory auditor who tries to dissuade a client from committing an unlawful act is not treated as having made a prohibited disclosure. That protects normal professional advice, but it does not extend to revealing that a report has been made.
Legal Reference (UAE):
· Cabinet Resolution No. 134 of 2025, Article 19 — prohibits disclosure of an STR to the customer or any other person, with a carve-out for dissuading a client from unlawful acts
· Federal Decree-Law No. 10 of 2025, Article 29 — imprisonment and a fine of not less than AED 50,000 for tipping off
For more details, consult the full text of Cabinet Resolution No. 134 of 2025 or seek guidance from your AML compliance officer.